Breaking

Sunday, 25 January 2015

Membership of ISIS should not be a crime – Green Party leader

After 600 people from Britain are thought to have travelled to
Syria and Iraq to join jihadists, with security forces warning
returning fighters pose the biggest terror threat to Britain.
The Green party does not believe people should be banned from
joining ISIS or Al Qaeda, its leader claimed.

Natalie
Bennett said people should not be punished for what they think and
stressed it should 'not be a crime simply to belong to an
organisation'.

According
to dailymail, the Green party has seen a surge in support in recent
months, doubling from 5 per cent saying they would back them in
October to 10 per cent in a recent YouGov survey.

Party membership has also risen dramatically, with the Greens
claiming to have overtaken both the Lib Dems and Ukip, bolstered by a
row over whether Miss Bennett should be included TV election debates.

What we want to do is make sure we are
not punishing people for what they think or what they believe Green
party leader Natalie Bennett

But after years in the political wilderness, few people know what
the party stands for, beyond its environmental credentials.
Green Party policy states 'it should not be a crime simply to
belong to an organisation or have sympathy with its aims, though it
should be a crime to aid and abet criminal acts or deliberately fund
such acts'.
On BBC1's Sunday Politics Miss Bennett was challenged about the
policy and whether that would make it legal for people living in
Britain to join brutal terrorist groups such as ISIS.
She said: 'This is a part of our policy that I think dates back to
the age of the ANC and apartheid South Africa.'
Pressed on whether that meant it would be allowed to be a member
of Al Qaeda or IS, she said: 'Exactly. What we want to do is make
sure we are not punishing people for what they think or what they
believe.
'Obviously actions of inciting violence, supporting violence,
those are absolutely unacceptable, illegal and should be pursued to
the full extent of the law.'
She added: 'What we are talking about is a principle that you
shouldn't be punished for what you think. And we need to balance, we
do not protect freedom by destroying it.'